Christmas/Birthday stuff is very anti-climactic this year.  

I bought all my presents earlier this week.  I had already decided to get a new cell phone.  (Replacing cheapie phone bought when I considered cell phone use mostly for emergency...  Now that I am using phone more for work, podcasts, music... am buying a newer phone with 5x more storage space).  Made the decision a couple of months ago but was waiting out Black Friday deals.  MM(17) was the guniea pig and got the Pixel 4A a few months ago.  I will get the same phone.  At the last second, MH decided to just get one for DL too.  He has someone's old hand-me-down phone.  I really don't like going all in and everyone having the same device.  But I guess the price point is good ($350).  Pulled the trigger because they aren't putting these on sale for Black Friday (bummer!).

{That reminds me, there is a Capital One bonus.  $400 bonus if you open a checking account with them and haven't been a customer since 2018.  Something like that.  My plan was to pay for my phone with the bonus.  I am the only one eligible right now because it requires paycheck direct deposit.  I won't get the cash until next year, so will just add it to my 2021 reward tally}.

MH bought the phones Monday and I purchased a case.  We won't be very formal about it, MH will just ask the kids to cover the $8 as a birthday gift.  But we aren't going to bother wrapping it, I am sure.  Same with DL's phone.

Of course, the phone stuff was made complicated by Ting and is mostly why MH pulled the trigger.  I have to back up though.  Dish bought Ting a few months ago.  Ugh!  I removed the Ting referral link from my blog.  I despise Dish, I am not going to take money for referring people to them.  I don't mind passing along a good deal or a heads up, but don't want to profit from directing people to Dish.  Is just my personal hang up.  I never expected the Ting deal to last forever.  For now, is the cheapest thing I can find, so will stick with it as long as that is the case.  In the end, they just announced some new pricing/plans.  You can stay grandfathered under old plans, but the new plans will be even cheaper for us.  We are switching but we need new SIM cards.  MH sped along DL's phone purchase for that reason.  Might have at least waited for Christmas or his birthday or something like that, otherwise.  MM(17) got his phone a while ago and was transferred to the Verizon network.  Probably same for DL and I.  MH has some fancier phone and I hope he ends up on a different network.  It's just a nice perk (with Ting) that if we travel, we are on two different cell networks, so less dead spots between the two (or four) of us.  Before the new phones/plan, we were on 3 different cell networks (Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint).

The other thing on my "buy" list, but no strong need and just haven't got around to it, is a nicer and more ergonomic office chair.  Pretty much the first one I pulled up yesterday looked perfect (the arm rests flip up).  Is one reason I had never bought a nicer chair for my "office".  I just have a desk in our bedroom which is fine, but none of our nicer office chairs fit if they have armrests.  So... imagine my surprise when the first office chair that popped up had flip up arm rests.  There you go, problem solved.  Should have done this years ago.  (I was already working from home one day per week, before the pandemic.  & before that I was doing second job from home).

I told MH I found a chair on sale, he told me to just buy it.  Now that I am thinking I will work from home more in December, it will just be an early Christmas gift.  

The only Black Friday deal I am aware of that MH took advantage of was that he bought an Instantpot.  I think that was dumb because his mom has been *begging* to buy us one.   (& we both have birthdays very soon).  But whatever.  I think it could be a good dorm appliance; I think it's good we try one out before MM goes off to college.

Other doings...

Because we had some Symphony concert tickets for March (concerts canceled), we have a free subscription to the online season this year.  It's not the same, but it was nice to mix things up a bit.  We watched a concert over the weekend.

We just donated our tickets back to the Symphony, for the concert that will never be.  It's the least we can do to help them through a tough time.  They would honor the tickets for a future show, otherwise.

The art museum offered to put a freeze on our membership.  I instead renewed and picked a more expensive membership than we had before.  For this year it's in the vein of supporting them.  But I think it was a good move with a kid starting college next year.  The higher level membership gives us reciprocal membership to a *lot* of museums. 

Between that and the electric car (pennies to fuel), I think we are going to have no lack of things to do. MH and have been through "very low income" a couple of rounds before.  My maternity leaves, and our own college years.  We know the drill.  We aren't going to be sitting at home.   We always find things that fit within our means.  When our kids were small, we lived for those memberships.  But the kids were also happy to go to the same place over and over and over and over.  I think this is a more appropriate 'college years' kind of membership.  It will keep the adults entertained while pinching more pennies.   

This is just a little bit of this and that; I have a couple of other posts to get through this long weekend.